Nurse practitioner practicums in Will County, Lewis's home
Lewis's main campus sits in Romeoville, and most of Will County's hospitals and health centers are a short drive from it. The county has three hospitals, health center sites in Joliet, Bolingbrook, Romeoville and Monee, and a mental health shortage designation that covers the whole county. We find a preceptor here who fits your exact Lewis practicum and prepare every detail your contract request needs.
Find a preceptor in Will County
Tell us your town, your Lewis track and the practicum you need to fill.
The county around the Romeoville campus
Will County had 712,253 residents on July 1, 2025, by the Census Bureau's estimate. Joliet leads with 152,241, then Bolingbrook with 74,803 and Romeoville with 41,281. The rest of the county runs from Plainfield, Lockport, Crest Hill, Shorewood and Channahon through New Lenox, Mokena, Frankfort and Homer Glen, takes in the Will County sections of Naperville and Aurora, and reaches south to Crete, Monee, University Park, Peotone, Wilmington and Manhattan.
Lewis's campus at One University Parkway sits beside Lockport in the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor. Federal definitions make Will a central county of the Chicago metro area, even though farmland still covers its southern townships.
| City | Distance | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Bolingbrook | about 7 miles | roughly 16 minutes |
| Joliet | about 9 miles | roughly 19 minutes |
| New Lenox | about 12 miles | roughly 22 minutes |
These figures come from a routing estimate between city centers, not timed trips, and weekday traffic can stretch them.
Three hospitals and one system next door
The Illinois Hospital Report Card lists three hospitals inside Will County, and research found no public page on nurse practitioner students at any of them. Treat each one as a place where a preceptor might practice, not as a program you apply to.
- Silver Cross Hospital, New Lenox. Independent, and named on the clinical agency list Lewis publishes for its BSN clinicals. Lewis's Silver Cross Hospital Partnership gives BSN students and graduates rotations, mentoring and loan repayment support; it is written for undergraduates, not NP students.
- Saint Joseph Medical Center, Joliet. Owned by Prime Healthcare since March 1, 2025, though Lewis's clinical sites page still carries its old Ascension name. Prime announced on Sept. 1, 2026 that obstetric services there would be suspended and consolidated at other Prime hospitals.
- UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Bolingbrook. Also on Lewis's BSN agency list; it shares the UChicago Medicine AdventHealth name with the Hinsdale, La Grange and GlenOaks hospitals.
Lewis's list also names the Will County Health Department and the Will-Grundy Clinic. Just over the line in Naperville, Endeavor Health's Edward Hospital is a nearby hospital with a written student process: according to its practicum application, the student first secures a preceptor who agrees to the rotation and only then applies, with requests moving through myClinicalExchange. The DuPage County guide covers Endeavor in full.
Health centers and Joliet-area shortage designations
Three federally qualified health center networks run sites in the county. Will County Community Health Center has locations in Joliet, Bolingbrook and Monee; VNA Health Care serves Bolingbrook, Joliet and Romeoville itself; Aunt Martha's Health & Wellness has a Joliet site. For adult and family primary care, these are natural first calls.
HRSA's September 2026 shortage files show no geographic primary care designation anywhere in Will County. The one population designation, a low-income area of 30 census tracts around Joliet with a score of 11, is proposed for withdrawal. Will County Community Health Center carries facility designations for primary care (17) and mental health (18), and the Northern Reception and Classification Center, a correctional facility, holds its own.
Mental health shows the deeper gap. A designated low-income mental health area centered on Joliet covers all of Will County and extends into Kankakee and Grundy, while a separate whole-county geographic designation, which HRSA calls the Madden MHCA, is proposed for withdrawal. Higher scores mean greater need.
Which Will County settings fit your Lewis course
Lewis's Clinical Coordinators and track lead faculty approve each preceptor and site for a specific course, so start from the practicum you are filling.
NURS 61100andNURS 61800, 180 hours each: primary care. The health center networks and family or internal medicine offices in Joliet, Bolingbrook and Plainfield fit, andNURS 61800also needs adolescents on the schedule. The NURS 61100 guide sets out that course.NURS 64100andNURS 64300: primary care of women and of infants and children. With obstetrics leaving Saint Joseph, outpatient women's health and pediatric offices are the stronger targets around Joliet.NURS 62500andNURS 62700: acute care. Silver Cross, Saint Joseph and AdventHealth Bolingbrook are the county's candidates, each reached through a named acute care preceptor.NURS 63300,NURS 63500andNURS 63700, 180 hours each across the lifespan: psychiatric care. The whole-county mental health designation points to community behavioral health, and Endeavor lists Linden Oaks as its psychiatric-only hospital. The PMHNP practicum guide covers all three courses.
Why Will County students choose us
We know this county closely: who owns each hospital today, which health center sites sit in Joliet, Bolingbrook, Romeoville and Monee, and where the private practices are in between. Your placement advisor finds a preceptor whose patients match your Lewis course, confirms the fit before you file, and hands you every detail the portal asks for, early enough for the two-week review and any new agreement. If a preceptor steps away mid-semester, we start on a replacement right away.
Living near Romeoville changes the drive, not the rule. Lewis looks to NP students to play an active role in identifying preceptors; the Clinical Placement Office facilitates, faculty approve, and each site goes through a contract request, with a new affiliation agreement drafted if the agency has none.
Distance still matters. Lewis says it does not ordinarily provide transportation for nursing clinicals, and every NP practicum runs 16 weeks, so a preceptor fifteen minutes from home can be worth more than a bigger name an hour away.
Questions Lewis students ask
Does the Silver Cross partnership help Lewis NP students find a preceptor?
The Silver Cross Hospital Partnership on Lewis's site is built for BSN students and graduates: loan repayment support tied to a work commitment, mentoring, and rotations at the hospital. It says nothing about nurse practitioner students. An NP preceptor at Silver Cross is still possible, but that placement would be an ordinary contract request with a named preceptor, reviewed and approved by Lewis like any other site.
Who owns Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet now?
Prime Healthcare, since March 1, 2025, when it bought eight Ascension hospitals in Illinois, so expect Prime's name on current paperwork even though Lewis's clinical sites page still shows the Ascension one. Prime announced on Sept. 1, 2026 that obstetrics at the Joliet hospital would be suspended. Research found no public NP student page for Prime's Illinois hospitals.
Can I do my primary care practicum at a health center in Romeoville?
VNA Health Care lists a health center site in Romeoville, and Will County Community Health Center and Aunt Martha's run sites in Joliet and Bolingbrook. Any of them could suit NURS 61100 or NURS 61800 if a qualified clinician there agrees to precept you and Lewis approves the site through your contract request.
What do Will County NP preceptors get for teaching a Lewis student?
Illinois lets a licensed APRN count 10 continuing education hours for precepting one APRN student for a semester, up to 30 hours per renewal period, with documentation from the student's school. Illinois has no preceptor tax credit; a bill to create one died in January 2025. The preceptor CE guide has the rule.
I live in southern Will County near Peotone or Wilmington. Where do I look?
The south of the county is farmland and small towns, so your nearest sites may be in Joliet, New Lenox or across the line in Kankakee or Grundy County. We search around where you live and drive rather than stopping at the county line, and the Kankakee and Grundy guide covers the counties just south of Lewis.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Lewis's own catalog, program pages and FAQ, its contract portal and Illinois law. Your course, your track coordinator and the Clinical Placement Office have the final word.
Lewis asks you to identify your preceptor. We do the searching.
Tell us your Lewis program, where you live and when your next practicum starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and prepare every detail the contract portal asks for, so your request goes in complete.
- Preceptors matched to the practicum: primary care for
NURS 61100andNURS 61800, acute care forNURS 62500, psychiatric care forNURS 63300 - Preceptor, license and site details ready for your preceptor contract request
- In your own community, anywhere Lewis enrolls you and your RN license is valid
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.